Garden Topics: Design Ideas

Create A Mailbox Garden

Follow these six easy steps to make your mailbox garden.

1. Create a design plan for your garden considering plant texture, color, hardiness and mature size. We can help you with this step if you bring in accurate dimensions and several pictures of the general area.
2. Lay out the garden bed's outline and then mark the perimeter with spray paint. Use a sharp spade to cut through and remove the sod, which you can replant elsewhere on bare patches of lawn. An easier alternative would to spray the established grass/weeds with Bonide's 'Kleen Up'. (Wait 10 days while the sprayed grass dies before proceeding.)
3. Amend the soil with bags of organic 'Bumper Crop' soil compost and high-quality topsoil; dig the amendments into the soil.
4. Arrange the potted plants, moving them until you are pleased with the scheme, balancing colors and sizes and leaving growing room between them. Remove the pots and dig planting holes. To boost drainage of sensitive plants like dianthus, sedum and lavender, add generous handfuls of coarse sand and pea gravel to the bottoms of the holes, then plant.
5. Water and mulch: Water each plant deeply. Spread a 2-inch layer of chopped bark mulch among the plants.
6. Water and deadhead throughout the season: Water once or twice a week the first season, depending on the weather. Snip off any spent flowers.